Improving on What I Already Knew

As I mentioned a couple of blogposts ago I have made some changes in my nutritional diet and my training. 5-6 days a week, I cut out grains, which wasn't that hard for me, and that also caused a chain reduction of cheese and wine! I prepare and portion most of my foods at the beginning of the week and plan a "theme" for a consistent menu of the same meals.

My motivation to make these changes came from reading the 4HB. In addition to so much good scientific information within it's pages, for me the message was more about the possibilities of changing your physical body by approaching it as more of as experiment than another desperate attempt to lose a few pounds (or alot of pounds). So that was my approach...I was simply going to conduct an experiment, remembering some of my own original, accidental, discoveries and reincorporating them back into my weekly schedule, and making, what I hoped were some improvements.

The mistake I made was that I made too many changes at once, so when I get to the part about the changes I did see, I'm not sure where the credit goes!

Here are the changes I made:

Out with the grains, replaced by mostly lentils, and rarely, beans and split pea ( a little bit of corn)

Replaced yogurt with cottage cheese for smoothies

Pre packed and portioned my foods. Stuck with the same foods 5-6 days a week

Cut back on my Bikram practice to 3 and 4 days a week, adding in Vinyasa flow 3 days a week.

Cut back slightly on kettlebell workouts...I said slightly, lol

Week 1 I informally started moving towards planning more structure, but I did not journal it.

Week 2 Wow! I planned it all out, wrote it all down and started to feel some real changes. Mostly in my mental attitudes about food, nutritional diet and eating. I started to enjoy it again! I didn't realize how much I was torturing myself over the decisions between all of the abundant choices I had to face, and what I was going to eat everyday. Gone...no choice...whew! I also came face to face with the fact that I was eating too much food....seriously, I didn't need all the food I was previously eating and I haven't missed it!

Week 3 repalced pork and veg soup with bean chili and corn stew...not quite sure about beans just yet, as Mark says that beans will put weight on you. Also replaced the cabbage salad, from week 2, with a spinach salad....not as "regular" as the previous weeks...back to cabbage salads, lol! The only "problem" I had this week was that I had some leftover prepared foods from the last week, so a completely consistent menu change didn't happen the way I wanted it to.

Mark and I went to San diego for the RKC reCert and I took some foods with me on Friday but enjoyed a killer barbeque dinner meal with some great wine Sat. night.

Week 4 I was going to incorporate back a bit of some of the foods I had cut out until I saw a pretty amazing change in my body Monday morning during yoga! Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it! Back to cabbage salad, and I tried a lemon smoothie instead of my butternut squash version, both are killer and I look forward to my smoothie everyday.

Last Saturday, my cheat day, I killed off the rest of the guava apricot chutney I had in the fridge with cheese and crackers, and a bottle of wine! Oh, and PNB and jelly sandwiches at the end of the night. There were a ton of choices I could have made for my cheat night, but I was way too tired earlier in the day after my 5 hours of training to go to the store!

Week 5 This last week I had the best time on Sun & Mon making all of my foods for the week. I made roasted califlower soup with spinach and chicken for my soup meal. This week my focus was more on continuing to eat meals, instead of turning snacks into meals by way of calories.

OK, so now for what's happened over the past 4 weeks? I got leaner! While I was in yoga I noticed a small part of my body where I had been holding on to a little chunk of bodyfat....it was gone! I couldn't believe it...where did it go? I was used to seeing it there, and now it had dissappeared. I showed Mark a picture taken of me this past summer to compare what I looked like now, and he identified the change right away!

Another thing that happened was a woman in yoga asked me if I had lost more weight. Really I didn't feel as if I had lost much because my clohes felt the same, I just looked different wearing them! I feel as if my mid section is significantly smaller and leaner, my abs, especially my obliques, are more pronounced. (I love having big square obliques....call me crazy!) I did weigh myself a couple of days ago because I was feeling much lighter and leaner, and I was surprised I hadn't lost more weight, in fact less than 2 pounds. Even Mark was surprised I didn't weigh less.

I had a bit of a candy craving Wednesday after I weighed myself...yikes! I know alot of people can relate to not "seeing" on the scale, bigger gains and losing motivation to the point of feeling like we want to give up. I'm sure that had something to do with it.... All is not lost. I usually get a grip, and feel my way back to what I know, and what I know is to NOT self destruct....a little candy never hurt anyone.

Here I am, loving every part of my life, yet having bits and pieces of doubt. I'm only human, but I still love myself, and I still I think I'm the shit! I'm loving life these days, lucky me.